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Difficulty: Moderate

4 hours per day

About $200 for a 10-by-10-foot room

Introduction

We'll let you in on a little secret: A lot of the fancy woodwork you see inside old houses is nothing more than deft layering, bits of simple molding combined to mimic ornate profiles. Consider, for example, the wall frame, the thin rectangle first used by the British in the 1750s to give the illusion of wood paneling after plaster walls came into vogue. If you have a plain room, you don't need to hire a pro—or be one yourself—to get this bit of custom carpentry. As This Old House senior technical editor Mark Powers shows on the following pages, all you need is a miter saw and a nail gun. Then, in just one weekend, you'll be able to add timeless character to a house of any age.